Sunday, April 9, 2006

How can a team look disinterested and slow in the last minute of the game with the goalie pulled? Hemsky? Can you hit the net? Are you injured? Most important game of the year and the Oilers give away 2 periods worth in lazy, inexcusable penalites. No discipline, no sense of purpose and no attack. And this doesn't bode well for MacTavish that his team is looking worse with every game down the stretch. With this loss, the Oilers have to look to other teams for help getting to the playoffs for the first time.

Even my patented purposely-not-watching-the-game-for-the-team that I alluded to earlier this week failed to change the Oilers luck. Usually it works: back in 1991, the Oiler were down 3-0 to the Flames in game 7, so I went for a bike ride to cool off, only to get back in time for Tik's OT heroics. Tonight, I went for a stroll looking for a corkscrew for a bottle of wine. Coming back in time for the last few minutes of the third, I was able to pour a glass of pinot grigio and start thinking of baseball season.

You're right about someone having to go, but who? If they don't make the playoffs, or have a brief fling vs. Detroit or Dallas, the post mortem might be a lot nastier than the Oilers are used to. They can't blame the league's economic structure anymore, which leaves the focus on the organization itself. The talent appears to be there, but for all the well-deserved bitching about goaltending, the Oilers have scored 5 goals in regulation on this road trip. 5. Roloson has given up 6 in those games. He hasn't been great, but if the Oilers can't score 3 against St. Louis, the problems run a lot deeper than second rate goaltending.

Apparently, somebody forgot to tell the Oilers that the Blues are on their 4th sting goalie and that they reliably fold once the game is tied up or they fall behind. As an Edmontonian trapped in St. Louis, I was looking forward to some hockey tonight (instead of the Blues gong show). Sitting behind the Oiler's bench, I was instead treated to a very tight, nervous looking bunch. The frustration was obvious: Horcoff throwing his stick to the ice when it snapped during the 6-on-4, Smitty crashing his stick on the net when they called him for a glove pass. The officiating didn't help, but the first and second periods were brutal. No taking the body, no crashing the net...real lack of effort. Sigh, yet another game of being jeered and mocked as we left the building: in 5 years, the Oilers have won once in St. Louis.

The typical Cro-magnon Man response from the Oiler organization to the 2-1 debacle in St. Loo would be to give Lowe Tide II and MacTeetime five-year contract extensions, even though their team quits on them more often than not.Why bother making the playoffs if it will lead to another season of these guys running the show?? It's not like they're gonna win a game against Detroit or Dallas, let alone four games to win a series or 16 games to win the Cup. Making the playoffs would just tack on a veneer of respectability over the rotting drywall of what was once a great franchise.

I'm getting a sense that a lot of Oiler fans were somewhat disappointed by Sunday's game.

:D

I haven't even checked out the HF boards yet. I imagine it's an ungodly scene; all severed limbs and swine manure. If I were an Oiler coming home, it would be best advised to not slow down at intersections anymore.

My masochistic tendancies demand that I listen to Overtime Open Line after each and every game. In the edition following the brilliant Sunday night Oilers fuck up was particularly exciting, as Al was forced to defend MacTavish left and right (according to Stafford, it is not the coach's job to motivate the team or reprimand the players for taking stupid penalties [it might scare them]).

So when MacTavish gets fired it will be interesting to see how Al will justify Lowe's decision. Will he even try to not come off looking like a rabid hypocrite?